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Can a VPS with full allocation of the physical node be considered a dedicated server?
randvegeta
Member, Host Rep
in General
Is it okay to call a server a dedicated server if it is actually a KVM/XEN virtual server, but is allocated all the RAM and CPU? Meaning you do in fact get a dedicated CPU for which you can use 100% of, and the full bandwidth and capacity of the RAM.
Can you call that a dedicated server?
I'm looking at using remote storage for use with dedicated servers, but getting it to work properly is a tad tricky. Running it as a VM actually makes it a lot easier. But I'm wondering if this would be an issue for people in general.
Comments
That's called a virtual dedicated server or a hybrid server. @exception0x876 has this type of server available
if you use it only for yourself then you can call it a dedicated server.
I’d call it Hybrid Server. You can also explain why it’s better.
I’d also recommend to pass through drives and network card so that you get close to bare-metal performance.
In my experience it is not worth the trouble, 3-5% overhead is worth the convenience of portability and simplicity.
For someone like me who doesn't mind the overhead, the hybrid servers are ideal. Depends on the use case, which is a good thing there are so many options out there
You're probably asking if it's ok to offer this in the "dedicated server" pricing bracket on LET.
SpeedyKVM has offered such stuff as dedicated servers in the past on LET: https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/97794/speedykvm-no-nonsense-just-black-friday-30-off-recurring-monthly
So if you properly describe it, I think it should be fine.
Only advantage of this is to get cheaper licenses.
If it's virtualized then it's a virtual server.
There is a a lot more advantages rather than just trying to checkmate licencing costs.
I wouldn't call it a dedicated server but you should make it clear that it more or less is.
I don't think so. A VDS is synonymous with VPS. Unless your point is that what I am suggesting is actually just a straight VPS? Which is a fair point.
The idea is that it would be 1 physical server for 1 client. Full usage of RAM + CPU and anything else would be usable to the client, less any overhead for the KVM/XEN layer, which is about 3-5%.
Hybrid servers... Decent name.
Not really, but now that you mention it, it's actually a good point. Would a whole node dedicated to one client, even if running on a Virtualized layer, count as a VPS or Dedi for the purpose of LET offers? Tagging @ishaq and @jarland.
What exactly do you mean?
Really no. I don't actually know anyone who does this to save a few bucks on a license. The point is not to save money on licensing, but to have better fault tolerance, flexible and salable storage, added functionality and simplicity.
I've been trying to get physical servers without any disk directly boot from an iSCSI mount, but it's just not working. On the other hand, mounting it to a KVM or XEN or any other virtualization platform for that matter is fairly trivial.
Running it as a VM have a number of benefits for both host and client. Host has a little less security issues to worry about if client has no direct access to the SAN/Storage Server, and the client receives all the functionality of a VPS.
Using a SAN, you can dynamically adjust the amount of disk space allocated to each server, meaning you optimize usage. I estimate that 90% of the disk space currently in dedicated servers we provide are unused. Centralizing will increase overall utilization. And don't think that means a sacrifice in performance, as you can run the SAN over multiple 10G networks, RAID 10 and SSD caching, so it could actually improve performance, and reliability since many servers deployed are single disk.
And it may not really increase the cost of storage for most people since having a central NAS (even with an overhead of 4x) may reduce costs by making hard drive failures easier to deal with.
The biggest downside I see is the overhead for the virtualization itself, and the inability to do nested virtualization (or can you?).
Other downsides include the potential for a single server to hog more than it's fair share of I/O, and higher upfront cost for hosts since each server then needs an extra NIC and switch port, and the SAN itself is normally not cheap, and you probably need 2 for added redundancy.
It's definitely a virtual server, but is NOT a dedicated server? Obviously not all virtual servers can be classed as dedicated servers, but can a virtual server not technically be a dedicated server too?
I think he means you can use virtualization capabilities of most modern hardware to pass the "workload" directly to the physical devices bypassing the virtualization layer.
IMO Virtio does a good job at it as well as Xen, while it can be done and will offer a slight improvement, i dont think it is worth the hassle and the possible SPoFs it introduces as this is not as frequently used as regular full virtualization and paravirtualization, therefore less tested and the hardware varies a lot. It is definitely worth it in the case of video processing but I presume this is not the case.
I'm mainly thinking about putting otherwise less useful machines to good use. I'm thinking storage servers or similar. Most likely all within LET budget. Performance will not be the biggest concern.
OneProvider sells these as "cloud" servers, but claims they're dedicated, which is yet another reason to avoid them.
Surely if the entire server is dedicated to the buyer, then it's a dedicated server. As longs you're upfront about the virtualisation layer being in place I don't see why anyone would complain about that designation, unless the virtualisation prevents them from doing things they could otherwise do with a dedicated server.
Isn't this what people assume as VDS (Virtual Dedicated Server) ?
I guess "Bare-metal" word was coined because of this?
I call upon the great senpai @William
Oh hail the knowledgeable one, enlighten us all with your knowledge.
I did that with dedicated servers to save license costs. I feel cheap now... :-(
No you can not, because you as the host node root user can stealthily login and access all of the guest's VPS contents including RAM, without the user knowing. Those buying dedicated servers often do so because they look for better privacy than a VPS would allow.
Well they wouldn't be able to virtualization themselves. At least not efficiently.
Cheap indeed! For shame!
Not sure I think it makes a huge difference. If the storage is not local to the server anyway, then the data is easily accessible by the host. But even if the storage is local, the host typicaly has direct access to the server any way, and if they really wanted to, they could just go in and access any data on the drive any way. Unless they encrypt the data, the data is not really private. But you can encrypt data on a remote / network storage device any way.
I don't think security has much to do with the definition of whether or not a server is dedicated.
In my mind, dedicated means resources that are fully allocated, and not in any way shared. The overhead of virtualization is a few % so if you get a dedicated server on the virtualized layer, then you essentially get 97% of the CPU and RAM that you would have got if there was no virtualization layer, which sounds pretty dedicated to me.
The point being, you could feasibly use 100% of the CPU, RAM, Power Supply, and Network Port, and it would not affect any other user. The same cannot be said of a typical VPS, even if they were allocated so called 'dedicated' resources. Take the NIC for example. Unless you have a separate NIC for each VM on the server, the NIC is shared. So if you have 8 VPS on a single server with a 1Gbit port, then you could not guarantee 1Gbit access to all. And even when dedicating resources, they are still shared and there is always a chance they can interfere with one another.
But a 'VPS' that has the full resources of a dedicated server allocated to it should not be lumped in with the same definition as other VPS. If it's not a dedicated server, then I guess it needs a new term.
Hybrid Cloud?
Hybrid Server?
Bare Metal?
VDS is definitly not it. In LT a VDS differes from a VPS in that a VDS is full hardware virtualization, whereas a VPS is container based (openVZ). But that basically means people already consider VDS to be a type of VPS.
Then you’ve answered your question.
Well it's possible, just not efficient. But a dedicated server with virtualization disabled on the CPU would still be a dedi would it not?
Look at how dumb you are.
WEATHER
You don't and I do.
And you are mega disgusting in how you try to cajole everyone into letting you call your scam VPS a "dedicated server".
I have learned a new word today. "Cajole". See - This thread was good for something!
As long is it's clear it's a VM but the underlying Node is dedicated to the person buying it then I guess could be sold as dedicated resource. There are a few apps that don't play nice in a VM but they're fairly few and far between thesedays (usually stuff that's based on real-time measurements) ,
My apologies. I meant whether!
Any way. I don't actually sell these so I'm not sure what scam you are referring to. Even if I WAS selling them, not sure how that would be considered a scam if it is made clear what they are.
The point is not get servers running on network storage, not to virtualize. It's just easier to virtualize when using a SAN rather than booting directly off it. Unless you think SANs are a scam?
Wtf is cajole?
@rm_ , regarding security, I'm curious what factors play a role in determining whether or not a server is dedicated? Does something being less secure not make it dedicated? Is network storage less secure than local storage? I'm not sure how you link security with being dedicated or not.
Network storage is arguably a shared resource and so one could make the argument that it's not a dedicated server on this basis. But does that then suggest that no network storage based server can be considered dedicated? Even in the absence of a virtualization layer?
@randvegeta
You can name it a dedicated virtual server, virtual node, whatever -- but if it isn't a physical server that I'm getting, it isn't a dedicated server and you shouldn't advertise it as such.
Some people imagine that, if they have a dedi, they will know when someone is snooping around.
It is easier to spy on a vm without user's knowledge, however, having a dedi gives no guarantees. As long as it is possible you should presume it is already happening and act as such if you work with sensitive data.
For external storage I use this setup: iSCSI over VPN with encrypted block device mounted only at destination. This wont allow anyone to read your data without your knowledge unless you make some mistakes.
English, since the mid 17th century.
Stop cajoling my conjoined cojones.
So is this actually a marketing question or are we answering the question "when randvegeta talks to himself, what should he call this?"
You should call it a blue onion.
dicks.